“How’s little Maggie?”
“Not so little. She’s sittin’ up by herselfan’ takin’ notice of the world.”
“I heard Etta Hogg was sick.”
“Her fever broke. She’s recoverin’nicely.”
“Ready to go back to work, is she?” It hadoccurred to Cobb that he might ask Etta to keep her eyes and earsopen around Tobias and Gillian Budge. It seemed the only way theywere likely to get at any deadly secrets that that pair might beharbouring.
“I’m afraid not. Budge dismissed her.”
“What!”
“Sent a message to her house. She’s beenreplaced. The girl’s devastated.”
“No reason?”
“Too sickly.”
At this point Crenshaw came barging up toBeth, looking aggrieved. “None of the doublets’ll fit me properly!I’ll look like somebody’s gardener!”
“Now – Mr. Crenshaw, is it? – don’t you fret.Gettin’ them to fit is our worry, not yours. Has Mrs. Halpenny gotall yer measurements?”
“Would you mind double-checking them?”
Beth smiled and led him aside.
Cobb allowed his head to be measured for thedonkey’s mask, then drifted into the dining-room, where he couldsit near the doorway and observe the goings-on in the theatre. Thefirst thing of note was a curious incident: while Rose wasmeasuring Horace Fullarton’s in-seam, he lost his balance. LadyMad, fetching in an elegant cream frock, happened to be passingand, in a reflex action, reached out and steadied him. At the touchof her fingers on his shoulder, Fullarton flinched and turned awayabruptly, neglecting to thank her. As he walked towards thedining-room, Cobb noticed that the banker had a slight limp.Meanwhile, Lady Mad gave Rose a bemused smile, shrugged her prettyshoulders, and moved away. Something was going on there, Cobbthought.
The second thing he noticed was the way inwhich Andrew Dutton had positioned himself so that he could watch -furtively, he assumed – young Lizzie being “fitted” for her costumeby Rose Halpenny. The man’s eyes never left Rose’s hands as theypressed and smoothed the silky frock against the curves of Lizzie’sfigure. If Lizzie noticed, she didn’t let on.
Twenty minutes later, Beth and Rose left. SirP. clapped his hands and pointed to the stage. Alone in thedining-room, Cobb got up and headed in that direction. Lady Mad wasstanding at the door to the ladies’ withdrawing-room, calling in toalert Clemmy of Sir P.’s command. Then she turned away, and movedtowards the others already on the platform, leaving the door ajar.In passing, Cobb caught a glimpse of Clemmy trying to lift herselfoff a sofa while stuffing some small object into the fold of herbosom. Something was definitely going on there as well, Cobbconcluded. The Crenshaws were not a happy couple. The lord andlady, too, were a strange pair. And both Dutton and Fullarton wouldhave to be watched carefully.
Things were looking up.
***
Director Shuttleworth suggested that each member ofthe cast remain on stage even when they were not involved, as hewished them to observe each scene as it unfolded in order that theyget a sense of the drama as a whole. After tonight, though,individual scenes would be rehearsed independently before the“whole” was dramatically reassembled in two weeks or so. Unfolding,as it turned out, was not an apt description of what took placeover the next hour. As Oberon and Titania, whose exchange initiatedthe playlet’s action, remained relatively stationary, Sir P. hadmerely to indicate where in their scripts they might turn away fromor towards each other, and where Titania was to exit. Puck appearednext and directed himself admirably, as he set the love-charm plotin motion. His “nimble” departure, however, did draw a snicker fromClemmy, who turned it into a cough just before being elbowed by herhusband. From there, matters went downhill quickly and erratically.The star-crossed lovers, who pursue and are pursued in a zany anddelightful way in Shakespeare’s original, added a series ofunscripted pratfalls, collisions and entanglements. Even withoutthe burden of speaking, Demetrius and Hermia could not rememberwhere they were to meet, stop, or retreat. Dutton as Lysander andLizzie Wade as Helena were letter perfect after one try, but theirprecision seemed only to befuddle the Crenshaws. Shuttleworth wasdriven to dashing about with a piece of chalk in hand, scrawlingX’s and scratching arrows on the boards.
Finally, Cobb’s moment came. The audiencehaving been informed in their programs just how Bottom the weaverhas come to be in this forest, Sir P. announced with much ceremony,he is to be seen first wandering about in the dark until confrontedby Puck, who waves his wand and places an ass’s head on the haplessmechanic. Bottom then sits down and falls asleep beside Titania,who upon awakening is to fall lustily in love with him. By thesecond run-through, this pantomime sequence was going quitesmoothly.
“Now, Titania dear, you are to deliver thespeech indicating your unquenchable passion for the donkey-earedweaver,” Sir P. said solemnly. “The comedy lies in the contrast -of beauty and beast, of overweening pride and fatuous vanity, oflove and its wholly unsuitable object. So, your actions here cannotbe over-exaggerated. Proceed.”
As Titania, like Bottom, knew her lines byheart, she could recite her speech and improvise appropriatelyhyperbolic gestures:
Titania: I pray thee, gentle mortal,sing again.
Mine ear is much enamoured of thy note;
So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape
And thy fair virtue’s force doth move me
On the first view to say, to swear, I lovethee.
As Lady Mad uttered the phrase “enthralled tothy shape,” she paused and began to trace with her fingertips theparticular hillocks and promontories of Cobb’s eccentric figure -not touching him but coming close enough to simulate a sinuouscaress. As her right hand passed over his thighs, her left one gaveBottom’s testicles a quick but definitely libidinous squeeze. Cobbgasped and gaped – and the spectators, assuming these responses tobe the donkey’s idea of ecstasy, burst into applause.
What kind of loony bin have I gotten myselfinto? was Cobb’s thought – when his heart stopped thumping longenough for him to have one.
***
Once again Cobb was offered a lift to King Street inAndrew Dutton’s buggy. On Tuesday, Dutton had said nothing, exceptto the horse. So Cobb was surprised tonight when the retired lawyerinitiated a conversation.
“You married?” he said from the folds of hiscloak and scarves. It was almost November and the Indian summer hadleft them without prior notice.
“I am.”
“Children?”
“A girl an’ a boy – thirteen an’ twelve, if Iremember rightly.”
“You’re a lucky man, then.”
“I count myself so. I been told you wasmarried once.”
“Twice, as a matter of fact.”
“Missus Cobb says yer wife took sick an’ diedon her way home to Ireland.”
“Yes, she did. We’d been married seven years.No children. Then Felicity took ill with what the doctors calledmelancholia. I decided she should see her family back in Cork inhopes it might bring her around. We got as far as Montreal, whenshe caught a fever and passed away suddenly.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Thank you.” Dutton’s voice had become lowand solemn, but he obviously wanted to talk.
“But you did marry again?”
“I waited ten years, then married my younghousekeeper. I didn’t love her like Felicity, I was simplydesperate for an heir.”
“What happened?”
“She died in childbirth. And the babe withher.”
Cobb said nothing to that. Such tales werecommonplace, but nonetheless tragic for those involved.
“After that, I stuck to lawyering.”
Cobb got off at the corner of Sherbourne andKing. As he watched the buggy disappear in the darkness, he feltsorry for Dutton. It also occurred to him that a lonely, childlessman no longer busy with his profession might find comfort in thecompany of someone as alive and ingenuous as Lizzie Wade. What kindof comfort was the question.